A GOVERNMENT minister has called on the decommissioning body to "talk to the republican leadership" about yet another cache of alleged Semtex discovered by police.
Gardai found a quantity of explosives – now reported to be Semtex – in a car in Co Meath last week, which last night prompted DUP Junior Minister Jeffrey Donaldson to call for John de Chastelain and the IMC to investigate.
In August Semtex was use
d in the attempted murder of policemen in Lisnaskea. PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Paul Leighton later said the materials "looked as though they came from old stocks", which provoked fears across the unionist community about how complete IRA decommissioning had been.
Semtex was imported into Ireland by the IRA in huge quantities in the mid to late 1980s from Libya and was widely believed to have been disposed of when the IRA decommissioned its weaponry in 2005.
"At the time when the IRA decommissioned, the DUP made it clear that there was insufficient transparency in the process and that we remained sceptical," said Mr Donaldson.
"That is why we required Sinn Fein to sign up to policing and the courts and why we insisted the IRA must dismantle its operational capacity. That continues to be our position.
"If it emerges that some rogue IRA elements held onto weapons then that must be dealt with."
Mr Donaldson said the situation could undermine confidence in groups linked to policing and justice and that it was important to resolve the matter.
"General de Chastelain and his committee would need to be talking to the republican leadership and the Independent Monitoring Commission should also be looking into this," he said.
However a Sinn Fein spokesman said the world was "awash" with Semtex and that it was "a leap of faith" to link the matter with his party.
"All Semtex that was under the control of the IRA was decommissioned, as was confirmed by John de Chastelain," he said.
However, he noted that some senior IRA members left the organisation in 1997 and said the IRA was "not responsible for these people or the weapons under their control", which he said was a matter for the police.
The Sunday Times yesterday quoted a Garda source as saying that no criminal or dissident republican group had yet been able to source Semtex on the black market. The paper also claimed that the IRA is carrying out its own investigation into the latest find.
A Garda spokesman told the News Letter that a quantity of explosives had been found in a car at 11.30am in Kells on December 18.
Three men were arrested for offences against the state and two men had been charged in court, he added.
The spokesman declined to discuss what type of explosives had been found.
TUV MEP Jim Allister said that if any connections were found to the IRA it would raise "fundamental issues" about the bona fides of Sinn Fein sitting at the heart of government.
